The majority of Americans, and most of their political leaders, live in a state of perpetual denial about some of the most dangerous and pressing issues the country is facing.

From the War on Drugs, to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, to the denial of man-made global climate change, Americans just don’t seem to be able to accept the science or the facts that are so readily apparent to anyone willing to open his eyes. Continuation of the status quo way of thinking will surely doom us to a future far more dangerous than it needs to be.

While the deniers are certainly more prevalent in the Republican Party (listening to the current crop of presidential candidates - except perhaps for Mitt – trying to outdo each other in their climate change denying bona fides is really quite comical), many in the Democratic Party have been equally as vociferous in their efforts to keep funding the war on drugs and the military-industrial complex, while kissing up to their fossil fuel constituencies back in such states as Michigan and Pennsylvania.

Forty years after President Nixon first declared a war on drugs, this disaster of a policy has resulted in millions of arrests, trillions of dollars expended, countless lives ruined, and yet illegal drugs are more available than ever.

While polls suggest a majority of Americans continue to support this failed policy, there have, thankfully, been two mainstream organizations that recently called for ending the global war on drugs.

At the end of May, the Global Commission on Drug Policy, made up of distinguished leaders such as former U.S Secretary of State George Shultz, former Federal Reserve Board Chairman Paul Volcker, former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan and the past presidents of Mexico, Brazil and Colombia, released a report calling for a non-criminal approach to world drug policy.

And just a couple of weeks later, a group (Law Enforcement Against Prohibition) made up of former law enforcement officials released their own report documenting the failures of the government’s decades-old battle against illegal drugs and denouncing the Obama administration’s drug policies. So even though the facts of the failed war on drugs are apparent for all to see, and respected leaders point out the drug war’s folly, politically motivated elected officials just keep maintaining the beast.

As with their support for the War on Drugs, the America people – ostrich-like to the end – keep voting for politicians who say that we need to fund a military that is as large as all our purported enemies combined; that maintains bases in over 150 countries, and that starts wars such as in Iraq, where there was never a national security imperative requiring an invasion.

We allow our cynical politicians to waste our nation’s blood and treasury because apparently we are more moved by fear and propaganda than by the facts. It would be one thing if we truly were safer with all these wars and military spending, but in so many ways, the opposite is true. Even with all the trillions we had spent over decades to make America the greatest military power in the world, we still could have a 9/11.

Perhaps most imperiling of all for our country, and indeed, for our planet, is Americans’ ongoing denial of Climate Change. With 97 percent of climate scientists agreeing, and with all of the credible science and anecdotal evidence from around the world making it abundantly clear that the climate is warming and that the human use of fossil fuels is primarily responsible for that warming, how can a substantial number of Americans simply say they don’t believe it? How can they deny what is so obviously happening right before their eyes?

The answer to those questions and the reasons why Americans are in denial about the other issues raised above are in many ways very similar. At a very basic level, it is easier and less frightening to maintain the status quo (however bad the status quo may be) when the alternative is a future that is yet to be charted.

It would seem that Americans are inordinately receptive to the cynical and manipulative fear-mongering and propaganda politicians have used to expand our military budget and the war on drugs. But while fear of change is certainly one of the key factors why so many Americans are in denial about so many things, it is certainly not the only factor.

Another reason is simply the selfishness so many of us manifest in our daily lives. Whether it’s the desire to obtain one of the jobs created by military spending, or the unwillingness to sacrifice their unobstructed oceanfront views of the horizon, Americans seen totally unwilling to make the smallest sacrifices necessary to do what must be done.

Denying the truth about the wastefulness of the bloated military budget, the unnecessary wars, or the grave damage caused by the war on drugs is costly and destroys lives. But continuing our denial about Climate Change will be lethal, not just for volunteer soldiers, innocent civilians killed in unwarranted invasions, and inner-city drug war victims, but to generations yet to come, and the entire planet.